The United States Postal Service (USPS) has announced several USPS promotions for 2023. These six USPS promotions are designed to incentivize marketers to use innovative technologies and strategies to enhance the value and ROI of direct mail. Let’s take a closer look at the available promotions for 2023.
Tactile, Sensory and Interactive Mailpiece Engagement Promotion
Eligibility: Marketing Mail letters and flats; First-Class Mail letters, cards and flats
Incentive: 5% discount at the time of mailing
Registration begins: Jan. 9, 2023
Promotion period: Feb. 1, 2023 – July 31, 2023
This promotion encourages mailers to incorporate innovative techniques into mailpieces to create a multi-sensory experience through sensory effects. Mailers can take advantage of this promotion with new developments in paper, paper stocks, substrates, finishing techniques and inks.
The goal of incorporating sensory elements 鈥� such as visual effects, interesting textures, scents and sounds 鈥� is to drive a higher ROI and increase the engagement and response rates of direct mail campaigns. Some examples of dimensional treatments to create tactile, sensory and interactive mailpieces are pop-ups, infinite folds, clean-release cards, zip strips, specialty inks (like metallic or thermal ink), trailing edge envelopes, and special finishes like foil embossing and textured paper.
Personalized Color Transpromo Promotion
Eligibility: Qualifying First-Class Mail presort and automation letters with an additional discount for Courtesy Reply Mail (CRM) or Business Reply Mail (BRM) inclusion
Incentive: 3% discount for color ink at the time of mailing or 4% with reply mail
Registration begins: Jan. 9, 2023
Promotion period: Feb. 1, 2023 – July 31, 2023
This promotion encourages producers of bills and statements to use color printing and variable data printing to create personalized, transpromotional mailpieces. The goal of this promotion is to demonstrate the effectiveness of using dynamic-variable, data-driven personalization and colors to help marketers enhance the value of mailpieces and increase response rates.
Emerging & Advanced Technology Promotion
Eligibility: Marketing Mail letters and flats; First-Class Mail letters, cards and flats
Incentive: 3% discount using emerging and advanced technologies or 4% discount using enhanced emerging technologies
Registration begins: March 15, 2023
Promotion period: May 1, 2023 鈥� Nov. 30, 2023
This promotion incentivizes the use of technologies such as augmented reality (AR), near-field communication (NFC) and video in direct mail campaigns. This is aimed to amplify direct mail results to deliver immersive and interactive experiences to consumers. This year, this promotion includes utilizing QR codes to drive mobile-optimized shopping websites for eCommerce transactions.
Examples of emerging and advanced technologies, which qualify for a 3% discount, include AR, Basic Integration with Voice Assistant and Mobile Shopping. Enhanced emerging technologies qualify for a 4% discount, and include Advanced Integration with Voice Assistant, Video in Print Technology, NFC, Mixed Reality and Virtual Reality. Incorporating these technologies can help to provide a memorable brand experience for recipients.
Informed Delivery Promotion
Eligibility: Qualifying automation Marketing Mail letters and flats; qualifying automation First-Class Mail letters, cards and flats
Incentive: 4% discount at the time of mailing and 0.5% discount for eDoc Submitters
Registration begins: June 15, 2023
Promotion period: Aug. 1, 2023 鈥� Dec. 31, 2023
This promotion incentivizes mailers to leverage the USPS Informed Delivery service, which allows consumers to preview their incoming mail and receive alerts for specific mailpieces. Mailers that include interactive elements in their Informed Delivery notifications will be eligible for discounts.
Informed Delivery provides a digital extension of mailpieces, offering a second touchpoint for customers to engage with direct mail through interactive digital images.
Reply Mail IMbA Promotion
Eligibility: First-Class presort and automation letters
Incentive: 3% discount for static IMbA on the BRM and a 6% discount for serialized IMbA
Registration begins: May 15, 2023
Promotion period: July 1, 2023 鈥� Dec. 31, 2023
This new promotion encourages marketers to adopt static or serialized barcodes on reply mailing. The goal is to reduce processing time and ensure QBRM mailers receive reply mail and invoices quickly.
Retargeted Mail Promotion
Eligibility: Qualifying automation First-Class postcards
Incentive: 5% discount at the time of mailing
Registration begins: July 15, 2023
Promotion period: Sept. 1, 2023 鈥� Nov. 30, 2023
This new USPS promotion incentivizes marketers to send postcards to website or mobile app visitors who didn鈥檛 make trackable conversions. The goal of this promotion is to bridge the connection between online recipient behavior and direct mail. This creates multiple touchpoints from each mailpiece.
Take advantage of these USPS promotions to increase direct mail ROI
The USPS mail promotions for 2023 provide a great opportunity for marketers to experiment with innovative technologies and strategies to enhance the effectiveness of mailing. By following the guidelines and eligibility requirements, mailers can take advantage of the discounts to increase direct mail ROI and deliver impactful and engaging mailpieces to target audiences.
If you are interested in participating in these USPS promotions for your direct mail campaigns, visit the USPS鈥檚 Postal Pro website to view the and , or email them at mailingpromotions@usps.gov.
